Cory Booker Took ‘Confidential’ Payouts From Firm While In Office

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has gotten himself in some hot water on the eve of his primary election. The New York Post reveals that Booker took confidential payouts while in office from a law firm that received work from the city. The law firm paid Mayor Booker every year and received more than a total of $2 million in legal fees from the city of Newark and related agencies.

Cory Booker pocketed “confidential” annual payouts from his former law firm while serving as Newark mayor.

Booker, the front-runner in New Jersey’s Senate race, received five checks from the Trenk DiPasquale law firm from 2007 until 2011. During that time, the firm raked in more than $2 million in fees from local agencies over which Booker has influence.

The multimillion dollar legal fees came from working with the Newark Housing Authority, a public wastewater treatment agency, and the Newark Watershed. It helps to have friends in high places. Booker has defended his conduct by saying he listed the information in financial disclosures, but the disclosure only revealed that Booker received over $2,000 from the firm and provided little detail of the overall payments.

If Aaron Sorkin were to make a movie about Newark Mayor Cory Booker, you can bet that Waywire, Booker’s controversial technology start-up, would provide a cautionary tale for the mayor’s voracious ambition…

After reviewing its business model, reporter Tim Fernholz concludes that it probably didn’t “attract investments from Silicon Valley’s brightest on its own merits,” raising the prospect that Booker used his power “to raise money for himself.”… In political terms, Booker was never Waywire’s campaign manager — he was its fundraising director. That’s not illegal in New Jersey – but it probably should be.

Despite attacking his previous mayoral opponent Sharpe James, for failing to disclose his taxes, Booker has yet to release his own tax returns for this campaign. Booker says he will release his tax returns at some point, but given that the primary election is tomorrow I don’t imagine it will matter much when he does. Booker is favored to win tomorrow’s election and therefore likely to win the Senate race. One can only wonder what else the public doesn’t know.